Spoils of War
by kabukimono
Summary: Yukimura suffers a complete defeat at the hands of Masamune, both in body and in soul. Now he must fight for revenge. Contains depictions of rape, abuse, insanity and character death.
1. Chapter 1

**WARNING:** This fic contains **physical abuse and implications of rape**. While not as graphic as other versions of it, it's still very graphic. It is not a pretty fic. If that kind of thing disturbs you, then please don't read. This was written as an experiment to the darker side of the regular X kills Y fics.

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The blood seeps through the rags, staining them the colour of his usual uniform, the only semblance of normalcy in this dungeon with this single man. The Crimson Demon, one who comes only once in a hundred years. A warrior that's broken now, bruised and bleeding and holds nothing of his former glory but the scraps of fabric hanging across his form. Even the coins usually found around his neck are gone, leaving just the imprint of the strap around his neck from when they'd ripped it from him.

His captor nudges him with one shoe, ignoring the blood that flakes off onto it. They've captured this once glorious warrior, beaten him, let him starve, left him underground with only the pain of his wounds as the only indicator that he was still alive.

He'd been sleeping, and snaps awake at the contact. Snarling curses and bearing his teeth like a wild dog, he pulls against his restraints, ignoring the burning in his shoulders and broken bones. Despite his situation and his helplessness, the spirit behind those eyes still burns with fury and strength as though he had never lost the battle.

His complete and total defeat.

His captor smiles, a grin made wild by sharp canines that glint in the sparse light. He hits the other man hard enough to draw blood from a cut on his lip reopening, hears his whimper with surprise and sudden pain. That noises makes him laugh as he tugs at Yukimura's sword-shortened hair and pull his head back hard until the man's neck is bared and his mouth is gasping for breath.

"Like a dog," he hissed under his breath. Yukimura struggles against him at those words, but stills when his ribs are pressed on. He needs the concentration to breath, to keep from passing out from the pain. "Like a dog tied up and left to die."

No one is coming for Yukimura. They've made sure of that. Sarutobi Sasuke was dead, long before his master. The last of the Sanada retainers were executed just days after his capture, and no one knows that Yukimura may be alive. The body they left behind had his clothes, his spears, his necklace... even if it's impossible to identify with the head removed.

His captor grins as Yukimura's eyes try to shut as though to keep from crying. As though closing his eyes keeps the pain from flashing across his face. But this is the culmination of his victory against the other man. All their battles have come to this.

His complete and total victory.

Masamune lets him go when Yukimura coughs wetly, giving the man some rest to regain his breath. Kicking him while he's down (literally) he straightens and leans back to wait for the coughing to subside. Seeing that once strong warrior reduced to this...

He should have let him die on the battlefield.

Cursing Yukimura's name again once the small room has gone silent, Masamune hits him in the face once more, harder this time. He should have died on the battlefield! He should have died long ago. Masamune can't defeat him now, not when he's broken like this. Not when he's hurt with no chance of recovery. What's the use of having a rival when you watch him wither and kill himself in such a way, because you were too weak to finish him off properly?

Yukimura's prepared for the abuse now and takes it with little emotion, glaring at the other man from underneath his bangs, plastered to his face with sweat and dried blood. The look in his eyes is contemptuous, of rivalry grown to hatred. The pain in his eyes is clear, pushed down defiantly, hidden by his stubbornness and experience. There is no fear.

No fear. No concern for his fate.

Yukimura has been dead a long time. Long before he was thrown into this room, long before his arm was broken by Tokugawa's men and he'd fallen on the battlefield, long before the Date army engaged the Sanada army at Osaka a few moments too late. He had died the moment Takeda Shingen had breathed his last so long ago, leaving him a man without a lord, without a cause.

"I brought you food," Masamune breaks the heavy silence. He already knows that Yukimura will refuse it. He's slowly starving himself to death, another defiance against the men that hold him against his will. Keep him _alive_ against his will.

Yukimura turns away, and Masamune's patience snaps.

Before, they had taken Yukimura in to try to heal him. They thought his wounds would heal and he could continue to fight his _true_ rival. But the break in his arm too severe and had never, would never heal correctly. Yukimura had stopped eating when he'd realised that he was now useless as a warrior.

Masamune snaps, as he does every night this plays out. He turns only to kick the door to the cell shut, toppling over the candle in the motion and engulfing them both in darkness.

Finally Yukimura speaks, knowing full well what's coming. "Date-dono--" Whatever he has to say next is muffled by Masamune shoving the cooked meat into his mouth hard enough to hurt his teeth (food Masamune has cooked himself, though Yukimura will never know this). He chokes, tries to spit it out, but Masamune's hand is heavy on his face, muffling his nose and mouth and Yukimura has no choice but to swallow desperately as he tries to intake air. When Masamune moves his hand, Yukimura spits out the half-chewed remains of whatever he hadn't swallowed, earning himself a hard fist grinding against his bad arm.

He screams, in fury and in pain, and lashes out with one of his legs. Even as starved as he is, there's still plenty of fight in him, and Masamune hisses and bites his own lip as the kick connects with his side.

But Yukimura has lost most of his strength in the days and weeks since he was first thrown into this room, and it takes very little for Masamune to press him down into the filthy floor. His hands are bound by chains that have rubbed his wrists raw, and Yukimura can't struggle against them as he's forced painfully onto his stomach as his hips are forcefully lifted.

He knows what's coming.

If you cannot break their bodies, break their spirits.

It's a tactic that any commander knows well.

A tactic that Masamune, just weeks prior, would never have done against another person. There was no honour, no point, no thrill in the battle that came from experiencing someone's full strength against your own.

It hurts. It always hurts at the beginning, because Masamune cares not for comfort. It's the humiliation and the pain, the feeling of being used and cast aside, not for glorious war and victory in the fields, but for lewd and vulgar purposes.

Masamune's fingers, dirty with blood and sweat and mashed food, press into Yukimura's mouth as he curses into the other man's ear in tandem with his movements, biting his teeth into the sensitive skin to taste his blood. "Die," he mutters. "Just die, just die." Just die, please. _Please_. Masamune is the only one allowed to end his rival, the only one allowed to take his life in any way.

Again.

Yukimura's fading in and out of consciousness now, white-hot pain from all of his wounds clouding his senses and making him feel sick on top of the heat from his belly. The fingers in his mouth keep him awake, just barely, as he bites down on them hard enough to taste the blood of another.

Far too slowly, yet far too quickly, it's over, Masamune shaking with fury, shame, and release. Letting the other man go, Masamune draws his bleeding hand toward his chest, ignoring the way Yukimura slumps as his support is taken away. It had been a battle of will and spirit, and Masamune had lost.

Again.

He doesn't look at Yukimura's form on the ground, the man's legs shaking as Yukimura tries to twist himself up to some form of decency. His clothes are too torn to offer much cover now, but when the guards come in to bring him water (they _do_ successfully force him to drink), they may fix the rags for him. If they suspect or know what Masamune does, they stay silent. It's their job.

Masamune punches the stone floor next to Yukimura's legs as he pulls his clothes back on. The tray of food, disarrayed and messy as the dishes have become upended upon it in their struggle, is left behind.

Left behind with Yukimura, as the door closes once more behind Masamune's retreating back.

Retreating, retreating. All that he can do is retreat because Yukimura is the stronger warrior. Despite all that Masamune does to him, Yukimura has yet to completely break.

Masamune's complete and total defeat.

It's only when the air stills again that Yukimura allows himself to make a noise, gasping out in pain as he turns himself onto his back, forces himself into a sitting position. The stone grates at his back and his sore rear as he sits, the metal rings cutting into the flesh of his wrists and he ignores it all, keeping some semblance of dignity.

No light.

It is just Yukimura, the broken man that he has become, in a hidden cell far underneath the Date complex.

He throws up the little food he had been forced to swallow, pain finally throbbing behind his eyes enough to make his stomach turn. It is, again, a small victory against his captors. It's pure stubbornness that keeps him like this now, that keeps him waiting to join his lord, his friends, his retainers in the next life. He is ashamed, regretful that their battles will never be truly finished, that they will never really know who wins and who loses.

But there is nothing either of them can do now.

Nothing but wait.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: Again, this fic contains references to physical abuse, torture, and rape. This chapter also includes implications of mental insanity. Do not read if these things disturb or offend you.

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Oushuu is a province with many beautiful things. The trees, the rivers, the farms. It's spring, just heading into summer, and the crops are growing well already. It promises to be a good harvest, and now that the time of war is behind the country, everyone looks forward to the new season and the new time.

The people are happy under their lord, young as he may be, and they prosper and grow underneath his eye. They are happy, peaceful, and above all... completely oblivious to the goings on under the castle. In a cellar, in a hatch, there is a set of stairs that leads to a room that none would ever thought would be used in Masamune's lifetime.

In his cell, far removed from the life of the fields and the sun, Yukimura has no idea how much time has passed. He probably never will.

All he knows is that the darkness, the stifling heat, and oppressive loneliness of his captivity is occasionally broken up by the arrival of the man he once deemed his most esteemed rival. Date Masamune, the fierce warlord of the north, who once made Yukimura's heart jump at every sight of him.

Now, Yukimura's heart jumps for a different reason.

It is anger, shame, and indignation. At the knowledge that Masamune will not deal him the mercy strike to end their rivalry and his life. That he's forced to swallow food more readily now, Masamune waiting sometimes for agonisingly long times in too-small cell, using everything he can stomach to 'persuade' Yukimura into doing what he wants. That when all else fails and Masamune is angry, Yukimura's forced and taken until one of them loses _that_ particular battle, until Yukimura is left so raw that he can't feel anything but that burning sensation and numbness, until he can't even think except for those words that are repeated so harshly into his ear. He doesn't cry, he tries not to scream, he refuses to let him win over him even with something as simple as those base, instinctive acts.

Again and again and again.

Each time he vists, he brings more pain and shame and anger to Yukimura. And each time, Yukimura feels no fear. In his mind (what little may remain of it), there is nothing to fear from this man once known as his rival. Even the humiliation that he endures time and time again, in so many different forms, is not frightening, it is angering.

_Those_ times are easy.

It is the darkness, the lack of knowing, that Yukimura finds himself fearing. When he's left to his injuries and his wounds and the cracks he can feel forming in his mind, and there's nothing to let him know that he still lives but the pain he feels with each movement. He doesn't know when he dreams and when he wakes, save for that pain. Pain is nothing new to him. He lived and thrived on pain, because it was his glorious lord Takeda Shingen's greatest lesson.

The mental pain of being beaten, of being used and treated as something less than living, is new. Every day, Yukimura adjusts a little more to the pain of his raw back, or to the pain in his wrists from the chains cutting into them, or to that feeling (that shameful feeling he hates more than anything because this is something he has never experienced before) between his legs every time Masamune leaves his cell.

It pushes and taps and beats against the cracks already forming in his mind each time Date Masamune visits him, and sometimes Yukimura imagines he can hear an audible shatter in his ears, alongside voices he knows cannot be there.

Takeda Shingen, long dead, expressing his disapproval that Yukimura has allowed himself to be captured in such a way. How weak he is. How stupid he is. 'I taught you about strategy,' Shingen berates him. 'I taught you how to be strong. And this is how you end up. I am disappointed.' And Yukimura tries not to cry, because he knows this isn't real, even if perhaps his lord is just across the Sanzu River saying those very words.

Sarutobi Sasuke, whom Yukimura witnessed being slayed before his very eyes. 'Danna, I told you to run!' Sasuke's form says, though Yukimura is not sure how he can speak with his head nearly-severed by a soldier's sword. 'If you hadn't charged back into battle like that, my death wouldn't have been in vain.' He points out, and Yukimura knows that even this spectral, imaginary version of Sasuke was as right as ever and he agrees and asks forgiveness and another chance.

Slowly but surely, Sanada Yukimura is going insane.

He hears voices.

Yukimura is pulled away from a conversation with his son - his son's head, the last he had seen of him before he'd been dragged away from the battlefield, and the six coins of the Sanada crest are still around that severed neck somehow - by that uncomfortable sound of voices. Squirming into a sitting position, Yukimura stares at the door and waits for it to open.

Though he braces himself each time, the sudden flood of light against his face and into his eyes always makes him wince and turn away. There are... two figures in the light, he realises as his eyes adjust painfully. Two...? Had Date-dono brought an accomplice, now?

"--smells terrible," he hears one of the men muttered in distaste, almost gagging at the smell of filth wafting from the door.

"Then cover your mouth," the other replies in an irritated, dry tone and Yukimura recognizes those voices now. They are different than the ones he hears daily, hourly, and he's apprehensive now (a new feeling). What could Maeda Keiji and Katakura Kojuurou want with him?

His throat is raw, sore, and dry but he manages to speak. "Katakura-dono. Maeda-dono. I, Yukimura, welcome you."

"Save your words," is Katakura's reply. He steps into the cell, and Yukimura hears the smooth sound of a sword being drawn. His heart leaps. Could he finally find release after so long? To think, that the Right Eye of the Dragon would be defying his lord's orders in such a way - twisted as they may have become under the strain of shame and Yukimura's defiance - but it is true, that the man is always looking out for the best interests of his lord. Surely the man that Date-dono becomes each time he visits Yukimura is not the type of man that Katakura wants him to be.

But Yukimura's heart falls just as quickly when he sees Maeda Keiji grab the other man's wrist. "You can't _kill_ him! Look at him."

"It is for that reason, Maeda, that we must set him free." A mercy killing, then. Dishonourable, but for what he has become, it is the best that Yukimura could hope for... a thought that makes him laugh. Where once before he had been prepared to fall in battle, his fate hangs between these two men. How odd the world could be, sometimes!

"No," Maeda Keiji is a pacifist, Yukimura remembers suddenly. Even on the rare times the man had fought on the battlefield, he had never inflicted mortal wounds. This makes Yukimura angry all over again. "We can help him. I'm not letting you..."

Yukimura drowns their words out as he pulls at his chains and his wounds cry out in protest. They're arguing over _his_ fate, as though _his_ life is in their hands. It is offensive to his very being!

"I, Yukimura, am not afraid to die." Yukimura says and while he's afraid at first that it may be too quiet for the men to hear, they both turn to look at him. Or at least, they both look at what's left of him.

"Migime," Maeda Keiji speaks in a strange tone. "This isn't..."

He is cut off by a flash of the sword and Yukimura's sudden scream of surprised pain.

Katakura Kojuurou has cut off Yukimura's arm. The broken one, that had always hung useless at his side and served as nothing more than dead weight and reminder of his shame. Whimpering at pain he hadn't felt since the day it was broken, Yukimura curls into himself, flinching away from even Maeda Keiji's frantic-but-gentle touch as the man tries to staunch the flow of blood, wrapping a length of rag tightly around what's left.

The sword is put away.

"Leave that behind, then." Katakura Kojuurou is even more cruel than his lord. "Get him out of here and then let him die. Just get him far away from Oushuu and my lord. I will see if he accepts that... offering. " He has the key to the chains that still bond Yukimura's right arm, and Yukimura feels the weight of them lift away.

Pain seeps into the cracks of his mind like smoke, leaving a red haze that soon pulls him into a blessed and cool darkness.

A darkness, that unlike his long weeks in his cell, is blessedly quiet.

Coolness turns into warmth, a natural and soft warmth Yukimura hasn't expected in what seems like forever. Confused, he tries to open his eyes. While of course he had never seen the River, he had always imagined that it would never be this warm! It feels like... the sun.

It is the sun.

Yukimura feels the warmth of the sun on his skin and over his face. It burns slightly on exposed wounds, but as he wakes up a little more, he realises that he's been dressed in something slightly more respectable than rags. His skin is clean, though still covered in bruises and cuts, and perhaps mostly surprisingly at all, there is another, greater, _harder_ heat against his back. Yukimura tries to shift around to see.

"You're awake," he hears a voice very close to his ear.

Maeda Keiji, then. Was he, perhaps, delivering Yukimura to his rightful place? Yukimura attempts to speak, but his mouth and throat are full of cotton. He coughs, instead.

Maeda Keiji makes him drink.

"We're out of Oushuu," the man supplies helpfully as Yukimura finds himself gulping mouthfuls of water down from a waterskin. He needs the water in order to clear his throat and mouth so he can speak, so he can yell and request to be allowed to die like a warrior. "I washed you in a stream, so hopefully you won't smell so badly anymore. You still look terrible." Maeda Keiji continues to babble on as Yukimura gathers his bearings.

They're on a horse - Matsukaze. Yukimura remembers hearing stories about Keiji's magnificent horse - and Yukimura is strapped into the saddle. Keiji continues to speak as Yukimura wakes fully. He'd travelled to Oushuu to deliver documents ("You know, it's very boring being trapped in one place all the time" he says, and Yukimura thinks that the man has no idea what he's talking about.), and while Masamune had been reluctant to see him, they'd eventually gotten him drunk and to sleep. It was then that Keiji had followed Katakura Kojuurou down into a hidden cellar and they'd found Yukimura. "I couldn't let him kill you, not like that. He's given you to me to take care." Keiji finishes, and Yukimura feels as though his throat is wet enough to speak.

"Maeda-dono, grant me what I am owed as a warrior." Is Yukimura's first sentence to the other man. Though he can't see Maeda-dono's face, Yukimura can feel a slight shift in the tension of his body, as though he's becoming angry. Yukimura welcomes his anger; he doubts it would be anything like the anger he has felt in the past weeks (months?).

"You're not a warrior anymore," Keiji simply points out in a flat tone, and though Yukimura opens his mouth to argue, he has to agree that the man is right. Sanada Yukimura is not a warrior any longer. He is less than whole, in more ways than one.

He doesn't even have his fee for the river ferry.

From Maeda Keiji, Yukimura learns that they have long left the province of Oushuu. Katakura Kojuurou will attempt to delay the release of Date's forces for as long as he can. They are heading toward Echigo, where Uesugi Kenshin lives and whom Keiji still serves.

Yukimura feels ashamed. His lord's rival would see him in such a state! Were his legs not so atrophied from the long confinement, his body not so off-balanced by the loss on one side, he might have tried to slip away in those few moments the man wasn't looking.

But Maeda-dono is steadfast in his convictions. In just a few days time, Yukimura is handed off to servants of the Uesugi warlord for greater care than Keiji can give him on the road. Yukimura, despite his pride and stubbornness, begs and pleads for them not to allow Uesugi Kenshin to see him.

Kenshin sends Kasuga instead.

"Kasuga-dono," Yukimura says with the greatest regret when she bows before him. "I, Yukimura, regret to inform you that your fiancé Sasuke has passed away."

Though she looks briefly angry, Kasuga-dono accepts the news, even if she bites her lip bloody.

They ask him to stay - no, they make him stay. "Kenshin-sama says that he knows Takeda-dono would do the same had I fallen into the hands of the enemy," Kasuga finally persuades Yukimura, and though he wishes they would give him the respect he found himself desperately craving, he finally caves in at the mention of his lord. Surely, surely Uesugi Kenshin, the man who understood Takeda Shingen like no other, was doing the right thing.

For the first time since that battle so long ago, Yukimura allows himself to truly feel hope.

It's a fragile, tiny hope that builds with his strength. While Uesugi Kenshin himself never visits - at Yukimura's frantic request, because after all, this man was his lord's fated rival, and Yukimura is no longer worthy of being seen by him - he sends others to ascertain Yukimura's progress and health. He finally eats, when Kasuga pleads with him ("My... my fiancée would want you to eat and I want you to as well" she says with an angry flush), and Maeda Keiji helps him gather strength in his legs and his remaining arm.

But as he gains something, he loses something.

Yukimura is not allowed time to himself. He is watched constantly, something that he finds tedious and annoying. It's as though they don't trust him, a fact that infuriates him almost as much as his treatment at the hands of his rival! It isn't as though Yukimura is _ever_ really alone after all, because he still has the spectres of those he's disappointed watching over him. And while he doesn't talk to them while others are around, he feels their presence as often as he does of those living.

"You're seeing things," Maeda Keiji says in an uneasy voice when Yukimura lets slip that Oyakata-sama had told him that he was doing well in 'training' (this mockery of training they push him to do).

If Yukimura is seeing things, than how he is to know what's real? He keeps this thought to himself. To himself and to the spirits he whispers to late at night when it's just him and his candlelight. He can no longer bear to be alone in the darkness, and screams and fights when the lights go out without a lamp. No one says a word, even when he throws a guard through the wall and hits another one light night during a storm when the fierce wind knocks all the lights out.

It is a humiliating life.

Yukimura may be free, he may be clean and fed and respected and even liked here, but he is humiliated. He is already dead, in his mind, his life as warrior having ended the moment his arm snapped under the pressure of the enemy attack. For these people to keep him alive is invalidating and insulting everything that Yukimura has worked for and believed in.

But he quietly endures it for now, because he doesn't even have the fee for the river ferry.

This thought occurs to him one night when one of his guards drops a single sen when he's giving change to another. The man doesn't even notice, but Yukimura picks it up and offers it to him, out of habit. It's very dishonest to keep money that doesn't belong to you. The guard seems pleased.

"Don't worry about it, Sanada-dono. Keep it yourself, if you want." Yukimura accepts this after a moment, and later asks Maeda Keiji for a piece of leather to fashion it into a necklace. They make it a bracelet, instead, tying it around his remaining wrist. It's terribly impractical, but Yukimura forces himself to allow it.

For now.

As the season heads into autumn, Yukimura is almost at full strength again - almost, because with the loss of his arm he will never be completely full again. The phantom limb aches sometimes, when he's trying to sleep at night and the skies are threatening to rain.

It's these nights that he finds himself getting out of bed and working himself into a dizzying sweat. He's hot and he's tired and achy , but it's better than dwelling on the loss of his limb. When he's able to focus on the strokes of the bamboo sword and not the remainder of his arm that's in a sling at his side, it's almost as though the past few months have been a dream. It helps.

Once he's worked himself himself to near exhaustion, he finds it easy to slip into sleep near dawn. They don't force him to keep to a schedule. He wishes they would.

Yukimura quickly finds that he hates pity more than he hated the treatment at the hands of Date Masamune.

It's pity in their eyes as they help him dress and bathe, as Maeda Keiji helps him regain the strength in his body, as Kasuga sits with him at meals so he remembers to eat. As one of the women helping him dress touches him in the wrong way, and he pulls away from her hands. As he stays awake at night and hears the murmurs of his guards over his own quiet discussions with the dead.

But while he may hate their pity, the gentle way that they treat him which is so unfitting for a warrior such as he, he swallows his bile and his anger and pretends as though nothing is wrong, though they all know that everything is.

His bracelet slowly has another coin and then another and another added onto it, because while Yukimura cannot bring himself to ask for the coins he so desperately wants, they are sometimes found or given to him.

Yukimura has five coins around his wrist when Date Masamune comes for him again.

They've kept his whereabouts a secret, he knows. For both his own safety and for theirs, and for his pride and legend. If people were to know that Sanada Yukimura was alive, had been held captive, and now lived the rest of his life as a cripple, they would laugh! They would laugh at how weak that the general of the Takeda had become, and he would be mocked for years to come.

So he's been given a tiny home in the back of the Uesugi estate, where Kasuga and Keiji come and go freely, and he learns that the Sanada are no more and the Takeda are long gone and that the general of the army, Sanada Yukimura had given his life in a spectacular way on the battlefield, as it should have been.

But Date Masamune is not a stupid man. Brash, arrogant, and perhaps sometimes illogical, but not stupid.

It begins as a letter. Polite but to the point.

_'Return him to me.'_

"I am not an object to be bargained for." Yukimura says indignantly when he's told. Kasuga and Keiji have both come to see him that night, and the other man sleeps in Yukimura's room for a change. Kasuga stands guard outside.

"... either way," Keiji says, and Yukimura bristles. "You can't go back there, whether willingly or not."

Yukimura would like to tell him that is not _his _decision to make, that it is not his life or lack thereof to control, but in the back of his mind, Sasuke agrees that the Dokuganryuu can rot, and he goes quiet.

And though Maeda Keiji's proximity is a comforting thought, it doesn't stop Yukimura from receiving his own visitors. Takeda Shingen tells Yukimura that he must not be captured again, no matter the cost. Were he not dead, he says, he might have tried to work with Kenshin to ensure Yukimura's survival.

'But my lord,' Yukimura says as respectfully as possible into his pillow, so as to muffle the words from the ears of the living. He knows Shingen can still hear him either way. 'You are dead. So I, Yukimura, will not fail you.'

The letters continue over the next few weeks. Even from his remote location in the back of the estate, Yukimura knows that Uesugi Kenshin is preparing for war. He may be a god of war, but there is nothing to be waged over. Certainly not Yukimura!

Yukimura would rather die.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: This fic continues to reference mental insanity and murder, as well as some slightly disturbing/gory imagery here and there. Read at your own risk.

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It seems like such a long time ago that, at the age of 17, Yukimura had finally become a general under the lord of Kai Province, Takeda Shingen. He had been looking forward to that nearly all of his life, since the moment when, as little more than a toddler, he had accompanied his father to one of Shingen's meetings. There, he had fallen completely for the older man. Strong, wise, and magnificent, The Tiger of Kai had embodied everything that Yukimura believed made one a man. "Father," he had said brightly. "This is my lord, too!" And both men had laughed and praised the little tiger cub.

For years, Yukimura had served faithfully under him and later, his ideals and legacy. Surely, surely, even though Shingen had turned out to be mortal man in the end, his spirit would live on.

Surely.

Yukimura sits in his room late one night, arm at his side. His legs are folded underneath him and his back is ramrod straight. The room, located in the back of the Uesugi estate, is empty save for Yukimura and the lone flickering candle in the corner. It throws long streams of light across the shoji screens and the detailed walls, making the beautiful artwork appear monstrous in the night. He can see and hear the shadows of the men watching him from outside.

He can see and hear the shadow of Takeda Shingen sitting before him.

A shadow and a skeleton. What is left of this once larger-than-life man? His face is shadowed as his headdress, torn and sheered and robbed of the signature bull's horns, have fallen over his features. Blood or bile, Yukimura doesn't know which, spills from his lips with each movement. The illness that had claimed his life had claimed his glorious body well before. His muscles are gone, his strength has diminished. Yukimura sees the candlelight stream through him and thinks that perhaps it is because his lord has not eaten well since having fallen ill. But despite the devastating effects on the illness on his body, Yukimura knows that his mind is as sharp as ever.

"My lord," he says, quite seriously.

The men outside go quiet.

"The Uesugi army will soon engage the Date army over this warrior." The remains of the warrior that he had become, but Yukimura thinks it would be impolite to say that in the presence of his lord. "Surely you would have some advice. I, Yukimura, will do whatever you advise."

One of the guards leave, and the other other cracks open the door.

Shingen is thinking and it is a long time before he speaks. "If it's a matter of personal strength, Kenshin won't lose to the Oushuu brat." He points out. "But the recent wars have left the Uesugi army with smaller numbers. Kenshin's strategies won't be beaten by the Date, but it will be close." He is saying exactly what Yukimura imagined he would say.

"I, will assist the Uesugi in any way that I can." He swears. It was, after all, his fault that they were warring in the first place.

He sees Shingen's fist tighten, though the man's arm is obviously too weak to hit Yukimura with any significant strength. "You fool!" Shingen berates him. "What good could you do in such a state? You'll end up dead or worse, captured by the Date again."

Yukimura's arm aches at the thought of being forced into his cell again. "Forgive me, my lord." He bows deeply. The man at the sliver in the door is drawing away with a hand to his mouth. "But I, Yukimura cannot let this injustice stand. Though I wish to follow your words, I..."

Whatever he has to say next is interrupted by the door opening so fast and wide that it nearly falls off the track. Maeda Keiji, dressed in a simple robe, is standing in the doorway. He is out of breath and red-faced, his hair falling messily over his shoulders, as he though he'd had no time to do anything but answer the guard's request for help. He is clearly not pleased as he enters the room. "Yukimura."

Yukimura is scandalised! How dare Maeda Keiji-dono interfere in his private conference with his lord?! His mouth opens to protest, to yell and as he glances back at Shingen... Shingen is gone for now, having been scared off by the invasion. His heart aches and he is distracted well enough to be pulled into the living man's arms. Instinctively, Yukimura tenses at the contact, but he quickly reminds himself that Maeda-dono is not interested in men at all. At all. He still fists his hand in the man's long hair as a warning.

"He isn't there," Maeda Keiji murmurs and Yukimura wants to shout that of course he isn't, because Maeda-dono has pushed him away. It is the same thing that happens every time Yukimura speaks with those that he has failed and it is very frustrating. He knows that they aren't there, but they _are_ and the conversations they have as are real as the ones he shares with those in the living realm.

But he knows these arguments will fall on deaf ears, as though it those living that are truly the dead ones, and Yukimura closes his mouth before they can argue, preferring instead to lean against the larger man, now that he has adjusted to his arms. For now, he will act compliant and regretful, and later tonight perhaps they will give him peace long enough for him to listen to Sasuke's advice, long after he has curled up under his bedsheets.

Maeda Keiji does not leave him alone that night, and Sasuke visits Yukimura only long enough to hum a song to lull him to sleep.

"There is going to be war," he says to Maeda Keiji later as the older man helps him wash his hair. It's growing out recently, which Yukimura is pleased with.

"Of course there is," Keiji sighs and he scrubs at the area around Yukimura's ears. "It's too bad, but it's unavoidable. This isn't even for the country, what is that guy even thinking?"

It's very unlikely that Date-dono is thinking about the _country_, Yukimura wants to point out. He has lost his greatest rival, lost him in more ways than one, and he simply wishes to regain him somehow. But Maeda-dono's scrubbing pushes soap into his mouth and Yukimura is too busy spitting it out in disgust to speak. When he remembers later, it is dinnertime, and Kasuga-dono is giving him an extra serving of rice. Her food is the only food he allows himself to eat.

Sasuke appears jealous, as he leans against the wall to watch.

"Kasuga-dono, you have been very busy lately." Yukimura is grateful that the arm that had been severed was not his dominant hand, because he refuses to let people feed him by _their_ hands. He can feed himself or he can starve. He can't even eat food _handled_ by someone other than this woman.

Kasuga seems surprised that he can tell. "We ninja have a lot of work to do." She points out as she eats her own food. She hadn't eaten with him at first, but he had insisted until it had become a thrice-daily routine. "Scouting, spying... there are many things to make a ninja busy." She doesn't need to say much more. After all, Yukimura had once commanded his own ninja squad.

"I, Yukimura, wish to help." He says and he sees Sasuke give a slightly disappointed sigh, as Kasuga bites her lip and looks away.

"I'm sorry, Sanada-dono, but Kenshin-sama wishes for you to stay in the compound." Her long bangs are very effective at hiding her face. "We all wish to keep you safe."

_'There is nothing left of this warrior to keep safe'_ Yukimura thinks privately, but he cannot say such a thing to this woman in the presence of her late fiancé. He is not even a warrior in this state, but a crippled man with nothing to live for but the promise of his own family's legacy. Aside from that, the mere idea of keeping a warrior _safe_?! It's absurd and insulting.

He goes to bed unhappy that night.

Sasuke stays with him, sitting at the edge of Yukimura's bedsheets like he had done before when Yukimura was too excited to sleep. "You really blew that one, Danna."

The guards are paying more attention this night than the last. Yukimura can only frown at his former ninja and shake his head.

"Let the Uesugi deal with the Date." Sasuke says to him. "Everyone knows that you can't beat the God of War." And that is that. Sasuke vanishes in a red haze and Yukimura is left alone with the candlelight.

They are right, of course. He knows this. He knows that Uesugi Kenshin is more experienced, more strategic and probably stronger than the One Eyed Dragon. But Uesugi-dono is _not_ Masamune's fated rival, and that very idea infuriates Yukimura. It is the dragon and the tiger, not the dragon and the dragon!

The war begins one late autumn day.

Yukimura knows, because Maeda Keiji says goodbye to him that night. "I'm going to be with Kenshin on the frontlines. I'll see you when I can." He explains. Yukimura wants to ask just one more time to be allowed to fight, but he already knows the answer.

No.

No. Forever no.

Yukimura lies awake that night, staring at the ceilng and the shadows that the flickering candlelight casts.

He has come to loathe his imprisonment in this cell. It is cleaner, it is lighter, and Yukimura is allowed to roam outside and speak to those that are trusted with his existence. But as he stands at a clearing in the saplings and turns his face to the sun, he wishes fervently that he could be set free and run wild as tigers should. There is nothing left of him to identity him as Sanada Yukimura! At least not physically, with his hair as short as it was cut, and his arm gone forever. Inside, he is the same Young Tiger of Kai who had lived from battle to battle as though there was nothing in the world that matter but that rush of war and victory.

It is this victory that he desires now. He desires that rush and revenge and the need for freedom. He desires to live his life as he had once before, to run free in the sun with his spears tightly in his hands as he fulfilled all his lords wishes. He desires...

They have cut his guard down to one at a time.

You cannot cage a tiger. You cannot tame him. And even if you were to remove his claws, he still has his teeth.

It is with these teeth that he now unties the bracelet around his wrist. The five coins are carefully slipped into a pocket in his yukata, and he shrugs on a heavier coat. It is getting cold, after all. He must take care not to become ill by exposure.

He opens the door, takes the dozing guard by surprise.

As Yukimura steps away, he leaves the leather around the neck of his guard even as he takes his sword. Another weight, another murder presses onto his shoulders and he almost can't breathe through the pressure until Sasuke and Shingen help alleviate it, like they had done countless times in their life.

Sanada Yukimura slips into the night, and it is not for hours later that his escape is discovered, when the night shift changes guards.

Even Kasuga joins the search, and they discover no trace of the other man. It as though he has vanished into the night like the ghosts he claims to see. She reports this to her lord immediately. It is an absurd idea, to think that those long lost would have returned. And yet it had happened for Sanada Yukimura, hadn't it? A man long thought dead had arrived only half dead on the saddle of Maeda Keiji. She hopes she doesn't see any more ghosts from beyond the river and that somehow, Yukimura returns to where he is meant to be.

Which is most certainly not heading toward the battlefield.

As he walks, Yukimura's eyes water with both tears and the exposure to the wind. The wind is perhaps a byproduct of the furious spirits yelling at him. He tries to drown them out. Never in his life would he have done something so stupid. To defy his lord and the man considered his best friend--! He is ashamed and regrets every step that he takes with Shingen watching over him, his words digging into him like poisonous needles.

Yukimura has betrayed that which he holds most dear. It is something completely unfathomable to him, and the weight of this most deadly of sins sends pain throughout his body with each movement.

He doesn't sleep as he walks, having changed clothes just a couple of hours after leaving the Uesugi grounds. He has shorn off his hair again, covered his face with a commoner's hat, and the dead arm is easily hidden by a well-strapped sword. It is uncomfortable, but it need only last long enough to arrive at the battlefield. _He_ need only last that long.

The night turns into day, and Yukimura joins a band of merchants who are travelling to the edges of the war. "It's dangerous," one man tells him as he helps Yukimura into the back of their cart. "But they always need things. Uesugi-dono pays well."

Yukimura nods. "He is an honourable man." Unlike other warlords, who might pillage and plunder for the supplies they need. It was dangerous and unnecessary to bring too many supplies. It merely serves to slow the army down, but there also needed to be a way to keep supplies readily available, lest the morale of the troops decreases as their hunger grows. Supply lines or merchants, both would serve the Uesugi well.

As would Yukimura.

From the merchants, he learns far more than he had learned in his prisons. The land is united, the world is at peace. "Until that Dragon of the North started sniffing around again. Hunting ghosts, I hear." They laugh, as though Masamune had lost his mind for seeking out his rival who had perished in a battle many months ago. Yukimura keeps quiet. Let these men believe that Sanada Yukimura was dead and that Date Masamune had gone insane. It was true, one way or the other. Yukimura's life had ended the moment his arm had snapped.

The men stop for the night and they are now so close to the war that Yukimura can smell gunpowder and blood. "Evil night," his new friend mutters as the men take turns sleeping on the cart. "Keep your eye out for spirits."

"I will," Yukimura promises.

And when the merchant is the only one still awake, with his comrades sleeping, Yukimura knocks him out quickly, using the edge of the sword in hidden in his sleeve. He debates killing the men, because he should be hiding from those who are most likely looking for him, but Sasuke asks him what's gotten into him. Stung by the remark, Yukimura leaves them alive, heading toward the fog of war.

Though his vision is slightly impaired by the night, he is led by both spirits and the torchlight. Stumbling over unseen obstacles, he walks toward what he can only hope is the Date camp. There, and only there, can he speak to the man he once considered his rival. Maybe, even though Yukimura has died and Date Masamune has gone insane, they can resolve it at last and leave them both in peace. It is this thought that powers his motions more than revenge or desperation or his fervent need to join battle once more.

Since he was a child, since that moment he had met Takeda Shingen, Yukimura had been groomed for battle under his lord's name. It was his _life. _And now, so cruelly robbed of his ability and his life twice over, he had lost everything. However, perhaps, if the fates were with him, he would have a chance to right it all. In this day, both he and Date Masamune could move on without regret.

At least, this is what Yukimura has told himself in his long walk to the battleground. He had had a long time to think on his actions and his desires. This is what is best, he has convinced himself, despite his spirits' other insistences. Yukimura now knew what was best, and it needed to end, one way or the other.

He makes it to the battlefield just before dawn, stumbling over the body of a man unfortunate enough to have been left behind. Yukimura stares into his face, as though seeking to recognize him. Date or Uesugi, he can't tell from the remains of his armor, though he supposes that the man's affiliation matters little with his death.

Yukimura has just picked himself up to continue when he is captured. Again.

He's not sure if he should feel lucky or not that it is Kasuga (after all, he may have considered himself lucky that Masamune-dono had assisted him off the battlefield in the moments after his arm broke). She is furious, something which is understandable, and the dark circles under her eyes must trouble her onlooking fiancé.

Yukimura doesn't move.

"Sanada-dono," she says tersely as she holds a knife against his throat, and he hears the sounds of her comrades joining her. "You will accompany us to our camp."

And that is that. Head lowered, Yukimura allows the sword under his yukata to be taken, and he is bound with rope. He is led to the Uesugi camp, and to Kenshin's tent. He doesn't fight this, because he believes that now he is worthy of being seen by the man, now that he is strong and well and has a purpose to serve. Kenshin is, of course, already awake and looks as beautiful and elegant as Yukimura remembers him being. It is as though he truly is a god, untouched by time, and Yukimura is jealous that his own lord had not achieved this in his lifetime.

"Young Tiger, " Kenshin says in his gentle, yet firm tone. It is still dark, and the candelight makes his eyes unreadable. "You have caused us quite a bit of trouble these past days, haven't you?"

Yukimura bows his head until it is nearly touching the ground. "Forgive me, Uesugi-dono. I, Yukimura, wish to be no trouble to you at all."

Kenshin sends his men out of the room. Even Kasuga is excused with a nod of his head. Confused, Yukimura waits for the man to explain his actions. But Kenshin keeps quiet as he observes Yukimura. His face is carefully neutral as he thinks, running light and delicate fingers over Yukimura's shoulder and across the lines of his face.

Finally Kenshin speaks. "I, too, knows what the loss of a rival feels like." He explains, and though his sword is too valuable to be used in the cutting of these mundane ropes, he uses the knife that Kasuga had left behind for that purpose instead. "You are both suffering from your losses, and neither of you will be satisfied without the conclusion of your fights, is that not it?"

Yukmura's heart lifts as the ropes fall from around his torso. So Uesugi Kenshin-dono was every bit the man that his lord had lauded him as! A man who was wise, both kind and firm in his convictions and beliefs. No wonder this man had been his lord's fated rival. He understood.

"However," Kenshin continues. "We cannot just allow you to wander back into the dragon's jaws." He presses a finger against Yukimura's lips when he starts to protest. "As you are now, I believe that Dokuganryuu has little interest in fighting you as his rival. We must act upon something else."

Act upon... something else? Yukimura doesn't understand.

"You will understand later," Kenshin can read the confusion across his face. "For now, you must rest. You must be tired." He calls his guards and Kasuga back into the tent. Under his orders, they escort Yukimura to an empty supply tent where Kasuga spends the next couple of hours with him getting him to eat and sleep.

He sleeps heavily, and he dreams.

Shingen is there, and Sasuke too. Beyond them he can see the forms of those he remembers have passed long before him. His son, his father, the men he trained alongside nearly all of his life, even the guard he had just strangled only a day or so ago. It is a bit overwhelming, and though Sasuke drapes an arm over Yukimura's shoulders and Shingen hits him so heavily across the back that both he and his ninja nearly topple over, he can hardly believe it is real.

Behind the group of people, Yukimura can see a river. He is led to the water's edge by Sasuke, who tells him. "You need to pass, Danna. Do you have the fee?"

Yukimura reaches into his yukata, pulling the small handful of coins out with a bit of apprehension. "I... I only have five coins, Sasuke."

It as though someone has blown out a candle. Sasuke's features darken, the skies behind him turn gray, and Yukimura suddenly realises that he can no longer see the other people in the crowd. Even Shingen's features are obscured by the sudden lack of light, and if Yukimura were imagining things, he might even say the man was looking gray and ill.

"Then you can't pass," Shingen tells him and he is suddenly too weak to hit Yukimura again, his body withering before Yukimura's horrified eyes. "You can't pay the fee."

Yukimura's heart breaks.

He tries to shout or cry or beg, but he's pushed away from Sasuke and Shingen, though neither man has moved. The coins fly out of his hand and go through the ghosts as he stretches out his hand. The ground underneath his feet give way and he lands in the river with a splash, as a serpent - a dragon? - slides over his arms and legs and pulls him under and --

Yukimura sneezes as strands of hair irritate his nose. He opens his eyes.

Maeda Keiji looks sheepish. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. I was trying to even out your hair, and -- woah!" Yukimura has turned onto his side and is vomiting, coughing desperately as he tries to breathe. He can pretend the tears rolling down his face are a reaction to the sick, and though Keiji rubs his back as he coughs and chokes, he doesn't feel anything but that cold rejection from those he loved most.

Sitting up and rubbing his mouth, he glances around the tent. It is just him and the other man. For once, for the first time in days, he is... alone. He is alone.

He is alone.

Has he... always been alone? "My lord." Yukimura says through his raw throat. Keiji stops cleaning up the mess to look at him, and look around. "Sasuke..." He tries again and again, as Keiji tries to calm him down, but where before the spirits would have answered his calls, would have appeared to speak to him, there is nothing but sound the heavy canvas of the tent moving with the wind.

There is nothing, but...

The sounds of Yukimura's crying as he realises that he is finally alone again. That his lord and Sasuke are not returning from their trips into the afterlife, and that he has nothing left in this mortal realm but the promise of his own family legacy. He sobs and he chokes and he wants to scream, and he only registers Maeda Keiji holding him down because he wants to claw at his own face but he can't.

He can't.

It is a long time later that he finally stops crying. He lies there so quietly that Keiji isn't even sure he's still awake until he speaks. "Maeda-dono. I, Yukimura, apologise for that outburst." His throat burns at the attempt, but he manages to croak it out.

"No," Keiji says hesitantly. "You don't need to."

Yukimura attempts to sit up. Keiji lets him. For a moment he sits, and though he glances up with hope that perhaps his ghosts have returned, he is quickly disappointed. But he tries not to let that despair register on his face. After all, Yukimura has been alone since the moment his arm had broken and he had been thrown into a cell underneat the Date complex. He'd known they hadn't been there, he really had known that. But that had been easy to forget when faced with those people he loved the most.

"You should stay in here," Keiji continues. "Kenshin's talking with Dokuganryuu now. Kasuga-chan's with him."

I should be there too! Yukimura tries to scream through his damaged throat, but he simply gives the other man a nasty look that says enough. Keiji says and offers him water, which Yukimura gladly accepts. He drinks and he drinks and the cool water is enough to make the burn subside though the ache in his chest remains. It is odd, and he holds a hand over it. It's almost as though his heart has been removed, and there's nothing but an empty hole remaining where it once was, his body attempting to fill the hole with muscle and blood. He hopes that his heart _is_ still there, because it would be very difficult to fight without it.

He doesn't realise he's dug a nail into his flesh as though to cut his chest open to check, until Keiji pulls his hand away. "Hey, stop that." He looks uneasy. "Just relax and wait."

Yukimura has had quite enough of waiting, but Maeda-dono's hand around his wrist is tight and somewhat threatening and an unpleasant reminder of another man. "I mean it. We're not trying to keep you captive, we just want to keep you safe. In Shingen-kou's memory."

At the mention of his lord, spoken so casually from this man's lips, Yukimura's anger flails up. It's a familiar and welcome feeling, and he lashes out. Unable to punch with his only arm held so tightly, he yanks back and _kicks_, managing to square a hit directly into the taller man's groin. Normally Yukimura wouldn't fight so... so dirty, but this is a special circumstance.

Maeda-dono releases him with a shout, and Yukimura takes those precious few seconds of Keiji's painful distraction to pull himself off the ground and run out of the tent. If he can get a good enough head start, then... then--

He doesn't go further than several feet before guards stop him. He can tell they're trying not to laugh as they wrap rope around his arm and torso, as Maeda-dono limps out with an order to put him back inside and keep him _down_ and _quiet_ until Kenshin returns. He doesn't see what's entirely funny about any of the situation and fumes as he's settled between two guards inside of the tent.

Maeda Keiji doesn't return.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note: This fic continues to reference insanity, rape, violence, and character death. This is the end.

* * *

For the second time in far too short a period, Yukimura finds himself a prisoner of war. It's different than his time with Dokuganryuu Date Masamune, of course it is. Where before he had been left to die - to live - in his own filth, far removed from the sight of any other living creature, now he is with two guards at his side, with the air breezy and the sun shining through the small opening in the doorway.

The men joke and laugh with him, and they even offer to help him drink if he gets thirsty. But Yukimura refuses it quietly. There's no need for him to. They aren't really there either, are they? As he waits patiently for news, he is still looking around, still hoping that his ghostly guides will reappear, to continue to speak to him. But there is silence and he has a feeling that there will always be, always has been silence.

The silence is broken by gun fire. A line of arquebusiers firing and firing, and the sound sets him on edge, reminding him of that battle of Nagashino so long, long ago.

Yukimura jumps at the unexpected sound and both he and the guards are instantly on edge. Had the talks not worked? Are they at war again? The idea, the uncertainty excites him.

Kasuga-dono shows up as the gunfire continues. She is out of breath and looks tired, with alarming dark circles under her eyes. A ninja's work is exhausting and unglamorous sometimes. Yukimura remembers seeing Sasuke in a similar state sometimes, until the ninja would come and fall asleep in Yukimura's bedsheets as a form of "watching him".

She doesn't acknowledge Yukimura at first. "Kenshin-sama is fine," she assures the two men. "We'll change you out soon. But the battle continues, be on guard." After a lenghthy pause, she finally glances down at Yukimura, and he realises that Maeda Keiji has complained to her. "Try not to injure anyone else until tomorrow, please?"

_Until tomorrow_. Everything else she'd said was unimportant - did that mean that tomorrow they would finally allow him out on the battlefield where he belonged? Where he might even...

He wants to ask, but Kasuga is already gone. The guards are changed out shortly, as promised, and Yukimura spends a restless night listening to the sound of guns and frantic talking outside the tent. He's so caught up in his thoughts that he even accepts food from one of the men with him. _Until tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow..._

It is this mantra that stays with him throughout the night, even as he falls into a troubled sleep. He dreams of blood and fire and lightning and the pain shooting up his arm as though it had been broken just seconds ago. Monsters, serpents and dragons, beasts he's only heard about. The faces of those he'd lost are blurred and darkened, and look almost as though they are rotting away before his very eyes. The darkness that had once fallen over most of the land of the rising sun, that laughter, those eyes. They all twist and crack and break and shatter and from the ashes that they had once been, a fire burns brightly.

From that burning flame, a phoenix emerges, which is odd. Odd because Yukimura is the Tiger, after all.

The phoenix screams and screams and screams and each new scream adds another crack to the darkness, as though it was a rock that is being bashed mercilessly before it shatters under the presure. As he begins to wake up from the noise, he sees _that_ face. The one he hasn't seen in any real clarity for months. The sharp teeth set in the cocky grin, the blue-gray eyes that always had carried the look of bloodthirsty, wild danger.

Those eyes, slitted like those of a cat's (a dragon's, isn't it?), are still burned in Yukimura's mind as he wakes up. The screams are still there, regular and loud and they make his ears ache even as he recognizes them for what they are. The shooting has started again.

"You're awake," a new guard says, and he passes Yukimura a wet towel. Yukimura realises he's been untied in his sleep as he wipes fresh water over his face; the cold helps to wake him. "We don't have a lot of time. Kenshin-sama wants to see you."

Though he still struggles to wake, Yukimura allows himself to be led - by just one guard, they know he would never run now - back into Kenshin's tent. There the lord is waiting, sitting poised and collected on a stool. He doesn't even flinch as each new crack of the arquebusiers tears through the air. "Young Tiger," he starts through a lull in the noise. "Our spears are not as great as your own jumonji-yari, but we hope this will suffice."

And the spear is _not_ as great as his own, but as Yukimura is handed a heavy spear, he can easily imagine that the shaft is red and the prongs are three in number. Though he is also trained in sword fighting (as most of them are), the feeling of a real spear in his hand sets his soul aflame once again and even with the tent as small as it is, he swings the spear down to the ground to test the weight. It is a good solid weight, heavier than his old ones, but sufficient, in this case. Glancing up at Kenshin, the smile on Yukimura's face says more than he can convey through words.

"Uesugi-dono! I, Yukimura, thank you for this." For this spear, for this chance, for the past few months...? He doesn't even know what he is thanking the older man for, and there is a particularly odd burning sensation in his chest and eyes.

Kenshin gives Yukimura a smile and stands, picking up his own sword from the stand next to him. "You look as strong as ever."

Yukimura flushes happily at the compliment for a moment, because with this spear in his hand, he feels better and more at home in his own body since the last battle he had participated in. But that moment quickly passes and his face once again becomes serious, eyebrows snapping together as he straightens and affixes Kenshin with his full attention. "I'm ready." And while he doesn't consider this man his lord, he is more than willing to accept his commands this last time. It is what Shingen would have wanted him to do.

That enigmatic, beautiful smile stays on Kenshin's face as he walks past Yukimura to the entrance of the tent. "I will rely on you, Young Tiger. Shingen would have done the same." This man understands Takeda Shingen more than any other person alive. With that final message, and with Yukimura at his back, Kenshin heads outside, into the battlefield.

They march.

Yukimura is near the back, with Maeda Keiji, who still seems to be sore over yesterday's events. Keiji is on horseback, Matsukaze standing unflinching even through the crack of gunfire piercing the air around them. Yukimura cannot ride with the spear in his hand, so he stands resolutely beside Keiji for now.

"We wait to make our move," Keiji points out as he looks down at the fidgeting, restless man. "Kenshin will give us the signal."

"Of course, Maeda-dono!" Yukimura says, feeling a little stung. He may not have been in battle for many months, but he knew that you should not act until your Commander told you to. Shingen had made sure he knew that, and even the simplest foot soldier was aware of that as well. It was the difference between victory and defeat and Yukimura had no intention of losing today.

"I'm keeping an eye on you," Maeda-dono is definitely holding a grudge over Yukimura's attack on his most sensitive place; it is obvious in the way he speaks. "So don't get any ideas."

Yukimura doesn't bother replying, only gives him a side-long glance and a soft noise, because Maeda-dono's priorities are annoying. This is not the time to watch Yukimura! This is the time for action, for revenge, for--

His thoughts are cut off as he hears an ominous boom, far louder than anything else they've heard so far. Cannons. His heart skips as he realises that this? This is war.

The cannonballs explode not too far from them, and in the ensuing chaos, Yukimura is separated from his 'guard'. Maeda Keiji is the highest ranking officer in this area, and he's trying to command the troops to scatter, to not group so much in one area, so as to limit the casualties. In the dust and smoke, they can no longer see Kenshin. In the screams and explosions, they can no longer hear him.

Yukimura is caught up in the stream of foot soldiers obeying Keiji's order to back up Kenshin. Gripping his spear so tightly that his knuckles turn white from the effort, he runs with them, pleased to find that he's more than strong enough to keep up with them. As they run, he hears Maeda Keiji screaming his name somewhere behind them, until he's caught off by an explosion that makes the ground tremble, and causes a few in their number to stagger and fall.

It is pure chaos.

The front line is a hell of weaponry. The guns cannot be fired with the Date soldiers out, so the arquebusiers bide their time, waiting for any Cavalryman stupid enough to charge for the Date main camp. They are a dark line behind a fortified fence, reaping death upon all those in their sights.

Yukimura heads into the very heart of the battle, a scream ripping from his throat that he cannot hear over the sounds around him. The long days they have spent training him how to move effectively are paying off. He doesn't stumble, doesn't hesitate, but he moves with lightning efficiency, stabbing and slicing through the enemy before him.

Through the _men_ before him, because the air is misted with so much blood, smeared across his face and building into his mouth that Yukimura cannot differentiate between the two armies. The men fortunate enough to be wearing the Uesugi sashimono are spared, as Yukimura fights and tears through the enemy forces. He is in element, he is _alive_ and every part of his body is aflame with desire and happiness and bloodlust because this is what he has wanted for so long, so long.

He reaches a break in the fighting, near the arquebusiers, and though the men take aim at him and fire, he is too fast for them. Perhaps the flames that he feels engulf his entire soul deflect the bullets. Perhaps they never reach him, but explode in the air around him, or hit those fighters around him, even their own men!

Yukimura reaches the fortified line of men and breaches it, breaks through them and leaves one man gasping for breath at the end of his spear. He sprints away before the others can fire, ignoring any potential threat they might be to him. They don't matter. They don't matter. The only thing that matters is that man in the back of his mind, in the forefront of his vision, the only thing that keeps him moving as bullets hit the ground around his feet, cut his face, deflect off the shaft of the spear he still holds so very tightly.

And he stops.

The bullets stop.

Dokuganryuu Date Masamune is standing before him, arms crossed. He is the same as ever, as the very day that Yukimura had met him (something Yukimura can't help but feel slightly disgruntled over, as he hoists that heavy spear in his remaining hand). Cool, collected, grinning with feral glee. His Right Eye is behind him, though he is not looking at Yukimura. He doesn't dare.

"Dokuganryu... Date Masamune," Yukimura breathes out. His heart is pounding in his chest. He feels more alive than he has in months.

"Sanada Yukimura. _Long time no see._" That strange language again, which Yukimura doesn't always understand. He is glad to see that his rival's spirit has not died. Masamune glances back over his shoulder, to the man behind him. "Kojuurou." The tone in his voice is as firm and demanding as ever. "Do not interfere."

No, no. Katakura Kojuurou must not interfere with their rivalry again. Though Yukimura is at a disadvantage, he refuses to let his physical... problem impede him from finishing this fight once and for all. Even if Dokuganryuu Date Masamune no longer sees him as a rival, the spirit inside of Yukimura is unchanged. It may be battered, it may be cracked and misshapen and deformed from the months of abuse and recovery he has endured, but it is unchanged at the very heart of what he is.

He is Sanada Genjirou Yukimura, the Crimson Demon of War, the hero who may appear once in a 100 years, and he is... Date Masamune's fated rival.

Though he suffers from the handicap, he is determined not to let that deter him. They stand facing each other, muscles tensed and coiled as they wait. The battle rages around behind Yukimura, but he has already forgotten about it. There is nothing left for him to be concerned about, but the man in blue standing just yards away from him. Nothing left in this mortal realm but this very real person standing before him.

Cannonfire hits one of the Uesugi supply tents, causing it to explode with such force that the ground seems to crumble under him. Yukimura's forced to move or lose his footing, and in that moment, the two men strike.

Masamune uses only one sword, and Yukimura tries not to be offended at the thought. Holding the spear under his arm and using his own torso as a balance, he fights with a renewed vigor. After all, exhaustion means nothing to a dead man, and Yukimura has been dead for so very long.

Away from the battlefield they run, weapons striking over and over again, and Yukimura's side aches and bruises and blisters as he uses it to help absorb the impact of Masamune's sword against the spear in his hand. He ignores the pain, lashes back out, sweeping and stabbing and he's savagely pleased to see that Masamune-dono sports new cuts and gashes across his face and arms that weren't there just moments ago.

His very spirit is alight. With passion and fury and even hope and joy. Anger and peace both threaten to overtake him each strike and parry, each slash of the sword or spear that connects with the other's body.

He has never felt more alive than in this moment.

Laughing, screaming, both of them fight to the death. To the _death_, for real this time. For each strike has every intention to hit its mark and to kill and to destroy, and it is only their skills and their convictions that keep those strikes from landing.

They continue to fight even as they reach a copse of trees. Though the leaves are blasted away as though in a fiery wind, the trees still provide enough cover for their battle, and muffle the noises of the war. The trees bent and break under the combined pressure of both men's attacks, their fighting spirit, their very souls that are bared for all to see, and it is only when Yukimura's spear catches on the exposed roots of an upturned tree that there is any actual turn in the fight. He would have been content to stay like this forever, between life and death, but his spear is just a second too late, as the root halts it's swing, and he feels a burning sensation in his side as Masamune's sword goes straight into him.

Is it over?

Through the haze over his eyes, Yukimura affixes his rival with a grin. Masamune's features are contorted with both pain and happiness. A look that Yukimura doesn't think he has ever seen in the man's eye before.

Letting his spear clatter to the ground beneath them, Yukimura stumbles a few steps to lean against a tree. He doesn't bother trying to staunch his wound, though the flow of warm, fresh blood almost tickles his side. "Thank you, Date Masamune."

He catches the look on Masamune's face before his vision goes blissfully black. It is look of confusion. Of hatred and fear and regret and loss. As he fades away, Yukimura finds himself dwelling on it.

And many hours later, Yukimura opens his eyes with that very same look on his own face.

This... cannot be right, he thinks as his eyes dart around his surroundings. He doesn't dare move yet, not when he's so unsure of where he is. The pain in his side is an indicator that he's still alive, but that can't be so! It cannot be so...

Overhead, there is no longer the brilliant blue sky obscured by ash but instead the dark canvas of a tent. The thing under his back is soft, unlike the tree he'd fallen against, and if he didn't know better, he would assume that he was on a cot. Glancing to the side, allowing himself to turn his head the slightest bit, he sees the torches at the entrance to the tent casting light into all but the darkest corners, and between them, the defeated form of his rival, Date Masamune.

Anger fills Yukimura, replacing confusion. He sits up as well as he can, twisting in the bed and throwing off the sheets covering his torso. He's been patched up roughly, and the bandages around his body are far from professional. He had been so close, so why...!

"You're awake, Sanada Yukimura." Masamune says, not bothering to look at him.

"Why have you done this, Date Masamune?!" Yukimura demands to know. Though he wants to stand, he must admit defeat. The world is spinning too harshly for him to move that much just yet.

Masamune finally turns to look at him, though Yukimura cannot see his face with the light behind him. His features are dark and only his eye is visible. Yukiura meets it evenly with his own cold rage. "You got a death wish?" Masamune demands to know, angry and bitter. "That's not a fight, not the kind of fight I want."

"That is not something for you alone to decide!" Yukimura cries as he stands, hand snaking out to support him against a nearby crate. Frustration has built up inside of him again. So close, so close! Would their rivalry never end? Both men would never rest in peace, whether dead or alive, without the verdict. "I, Yukimura, wish to--"

"Wish to what?" Date Masamune cuts him off, and he strides forward. Yukimura doesn't allow himself to be intimidated and stands there stonily, staring into that once familiar face. That face that stirred his spirit like nearly no other. "Die like that? Is that what your life is worth?"

Yukimura sputters and stumbles over his words as he tries to reply past his anger, and Masamune plows on. "You're not even worth sharpening my blade against, anymore. If I went all out on you, it'd be no challenge. So why--" He doesn't finish his sentence as Yukimura, tired of being talked over, tired of being seen as just a spoil of war, pulls back his fist and punches him square in the face.

Masamune staggers, and though he might have automatically picked up his sword for a deadly counterattack, the tent is too small for any proper weapon use. He punches back in return, and as Yukimura's knees hit the back of the bed and he flails, Masamune grabs him by the back of the head, pulls on his hair, and punches him square in the face.

Yukimura feels his nose break.

Masamune doesn't stop hitting him, even as Yukimura's ungloved hand leave red marks and cuts against his arm and face in desperation. The taller man's furious and almost bestial, and Yukimura could swear that his eyes are glowing in the firelight.

His face aches from the blows, spots erupt throughout his vision and blood fills his mouth. Spitting it out, Yukimura manages to twist and use his superior flexibility to deliver a kick to Masamune's hip.

He lets go.

Yukimmura attempts to tackle him, to push past him, but the world is swaying and he stumbles and falls heavily onto the ground, and before he can pick himself back up, his arm is stepped on. Hissing with pain, Yukimura kicks out again at his foe, using the weight against his arm to hold him to get sufficient height. Though it connects with his target, his leg is caught and he feels it being twisted, twisted until he wants to scream again, and he's forced to roll onto his stomach before his leg snaps from the pressure.

_No. No._ Nothing good had ever come of Yukimura being forced onto his stomach. Screams of rage spill out from a bloody lip as he claws with his free hand behind him, but he has only one arm, and Dokuganryuu Date Masamune has two.

"No," he hears Date-dono mutter from above him. The man's weight is heavy and hot, and utterly nauseating. "I won't." He's trying to be... assuring? Or threatening. Yukimura doesn't know and he doesn't want to find out, and even though his arm is pressed against his back painfully, he manages to look over his shoulder to glance into the other man's face. There's a type of savage glee as he realises that Masamune is not without his marks. Blood streams from a cut on his cheek, a bruise forms above his good eye, and his ear is bloody as well.

Masamune catches him looking and Yukimura lets out a cry of pain as he's slammed into the ground. Over and over and the breath is knocked out of him and he thinks he can hear his broken mind rattling inside of his possibly broken skull.

Yukimura goes quiet only because he can't breathe and as he frantically tries to catch his breath, chest heaving despite the heavy weight against it, he feels himself being turned over again. He doesn't fight that invasive pushing, rolling over onto his back because it can only help him, lungs expanding desperately to fill with air.

But no sooner has he painfully drawn in a lungful of air, that he feels warm, wet hands wrap around his throat. Yukimura's eyes can barely focus on the twisted, hate-filled face of his rival, whose eye is narrowed and darkened, his lips pulled back to reveal sharp, snarling teeth.

So it has come to this.

It has come to this.

Yukimura is finally dying at the hands of his rival, after a bloody and magnificent battle, even if the end result had almost not been very favourable. It is impossible to breathe, to think, to do anything but focus on that face so close to his own. He wants to laugh and thank the other man for this wonderful battle, but all Yukimura can do is lift his hands to touch the back of one of the hands so tightly wrapped around his neck. And he smiles again.

He grins, he smiles, he meets the eyes of his rival as if to say "thank you", because this end to this rivalry is the best what he could have hoped for.

And his vision goes dark, growing fuzzy at the edges, and the only thing that he can see now is that face, that eyepatch, that eye, the teeth that are still as sharp and vicious as ever, even hough those lips are suddenly... suddenly...

His lungs expand instinctively as the fingers leave his neck, sucking in cold air so hard that's almost painful. He coughs and doubles over and anger fills him almost as readily as the air fills his lungs.

Glancing through his bangs as he breathes, he sees Date Masamune looking away, moving off of him. _No._ Yukimura had left been touching his bruised neck and that hand now lashes out, catching Masamune in his blind spot.

Success. The blow lands, and Masamune is taken by surprise. He lands on the dirt floor of the tent, and before he can get up, Yukimura has seized the collar of his jacket and has used it as a handhold to knock his head against a wooden crate. The sound is sickening as Masamune's head connects hard with the edge. Ignoring the splatter of blood, the gurgle in Masamune's throat as he passes out, Yukimura lets his rival crumble in his hand.

Yukimura is past thinking, past reason or any feeling beyond rage. This was not the way that battles were fought, that wars were waged. You must never show sympathy, compassion... pity to your enemy before you. To your rival, it is nothing short of insulting. How would Masamune feel if Yukimura treated him in such a way? All that anger and rage, that abuse that Yukimura had suffered for months at his hands; did it all mean nothing now? Nothing because Date Masamune couldn't end their rivalry in such a way? It was insulting to Yukimura's very soul.

Yukimura is past all coherent thought, and he turns his unconscious rival over onto his back. He notes that the man is breathing still, though unresponsive to Yukimura's rough handling of him. Good. Good. Only one of them need die tonight, and Yukimura has had his place reserved for some time now.

It's difficult with one arm, but Yukimura loosens and tears the clothing from Masamune's form. He's not wearing his armour for once (had he not thought Yukimura was a threat? That makes him angry again), which aids in the process, and Masamune is soon left nearly nude in front of him, with only strips of fabric around his arms and legs. It is not a surprising or awe-inspiring sight; they have seen each other nude before, even well before Yukimura's captivity, long long ago when they had been true and just rivals. It is a thought he pushes out of his mind as he runs bloodied fingers across Masamune's chest, which is moving shallowly as the unconscious man breathes. The blood leaves a trail against some of the many scars in his skin, and Yukimura draws six circles out of habit.

And then, because he can't think past the throbbing in his face and the pain bursting from his side that threatens to cover his world in darkness, Yukimura acts purely on instinct. There is nothing to do but return to Masamune every wound, every indignancy, every insult that has been so ruthlessly forced onto Yukimura in the past several months. He wants Masamune to feel all of his pain, his suffering, his shame and regret, and though this is not the way that honourable men fight, it is the way that Dokuganryuu Date Masamune has been fighting with him for months.

Blood is not a lubricant, and Yukimura derives no pleasure from this act, whether physical or mental. The pain he feels throughout his body (and throughout his soul) threatens to overtake his consciousness, and he can't hear anything through the rush of blood and his frantic breath. The blood is spilling faster with each movement, staining them both a respectable crimson shade. It is anger and instinct that moves him in such a way, that causes him to pull on Masamune's wet hair as he defiles the warrior's body in exactly the same way Yukimura had been defiled before.

But through the darkness prickling at the corners of his vision with each motion, Yukimura catches the glint of firelight on a metal surface. Odd, because he hadn't seen any weapons in the tent before, and he turns his head to look.

In the struggle, they had knocked over a bag of supplies and one single, lone sen has rolled out to lie in the dust floor.

And Yukimura remembers everything. That this man is his rival and not his enemy, and they had both lost their rivalry when Yukimura had been made a cripple. That Masamune-dono had been searching for him for so long, for some form of closure and it was only because Yukimura would always be unable to give him what he really wanted that he couldn't kill the man in a fair fight. And yet he couldn't let him die, because they had sworn to each other that they would be the one to strike that most honourable of blows against each other, whomever were to die first. It is sad, Yukimura thinks, that his rival may be just as broken by this horrible truth as he is.

Yukimura pulls away from the other man, noting with shame that Masamune still doesn't react even now that the invasion is over. He runs his bloodied fingers over the man's face, tracing the iconic eyepatch. "I, Yukimura, ask for your forgiveness, Masamune-dono." He says into the empty air, and though he finds it difficult to move with his side making his leg numb, he pulls himself over to where the sen glinted in the fire light.

Holding it in his teeth, he pulls out the other five sen from that special pocket in his kimono and he stares at the metal with a happy smile stretching across his battered face.

Six sen. Yukimura has the toll for the river fee now.

Glancing guiltily back at Dokuganryuu Date Masamune's form, he feels a bit of shame. Yukimura had died a long time ago. Both his arm and his soul had broken under the pressure, and it wasn't fair nor right that his rival had been left to chase Yukimura's wayward ghost. But it would be over now, wouldn't it? Yukimura had his toll for the river and so he could finally pass and Masamune-dono would be free to move on as well.

Pulling himself up to sit against a crate of supplies, Yukimura knows his body - his earthly, deformed, weak body - is failing fast. With one motion that he knows will be his last, Yukimura kicks over one of the torch stands, watches the fire flip over into the canvas of the tent and admires the way that the flame runs up the side of the fabric.

It spreads and eats and climbs and all within range soon catch fire. The papers, the boxes, the bed and... Yukimura himself feels sudden scorching heat spreading across his limbs and he's warm, too warm, and it's like being engulfed in his fighting spirit. He likes it.

Masamune-dono lies prone on the dirt floor and Yukimura watches through flame as Katakura Kojuurou rushes in with a wet cloth around himself, followed by two other men who attempt to hold back the flaming canvas of the tent's entrance. The lord of Oushuu is quickly saved and pulled from the burning tent, and though Yukimura thinks that he sees Katakura Kojuurou glance back at his burning form as they exit the tent, he isn't sure, because the world finally, finally goes completely black and Yukimura is unaware of anything.

He is unaware of anything but the burning toll in his hand, the metal melting into the skin that is left, and of the sound of flame as the tent collapses around him. He is unaware of anything, but that sudden presence around him, of arms wrapping around his shoulders and a voice he's heard so often until so recently. And he smiles, and it hurts and he is nearly gone, and and then, he is not even aware of that.

Sanada Yukimura, Crimson Demon of War, hands his toll, the half-melted six coins, over to the river ferry and steps into the water.


End file.
